Collected Short Fiction, page 509
XIII.
Waiting for the time to dine with Ironsmith, Claypool felt a sick desire to see his wife again. Yet he was afraid to return to that gay nursery room, where he had seen her building up her plastic blocks and crying when they fell. His control was too fragile. Too easily, he might let compassion for her break through, and betray his hatred of the humanoids, and so invite oblivion.
Tired, he tried to relax. He surrendered his person to the efficient machines, and they washed him in a perfumed bath, steamed him and massaged him and clad him finally in a soft white robe.
He didn’t like the robe. It fastened in the back with tiny rhodomagnetic snaps which he couldn’t reach or work, and it made him feel ridiculously unclad. He asked meekly for his trousers, but the machines told him they had been destroyed.
“They had been worn, sir. They were no longer sterile.”
He said no more. He wasn’t seeking forgetfulness. The expert rubdown had relaxed his body, and his mind was absorbed in a resolution to find the key to Ironsmith’s special status, and earn freedom of his own to reach that firing key. His thought was shattered by a cheery drone:
“Your body needs attention, sir. It already shows defects due to age and overwork and the want o? proper care. Your muscular tensions indicate continued worry, which ought to be relieved. We must advise euphoride, sir, without any long delay.”
“No!” Claypool’s voice turned sharp, and he felt those familiar tensions drawing him dangerously rigid again. “I’ll be all right,” he insisted stubbornly. “Ironsmith is going to help me get adjusted.”
“The treatment may be delayed until you have seen him,” the little machine conceded. “But such tensions as yours are not easily relieved.”
Waiting for the time to go, he sat on a wide terrace at the villa, watching the desert redden in the misty dusk. The cruiser ready on the stage was a long smooth egg, bright-streaked with reflections of land and sky. A little humanoid, far beyond, was guiding a humming lawn mower. The whole scene was quiet enough, but he could feel the silent alertness of the two, silent guards behind his chair, and his thoughts moved in defiant rebellion.
He nursed a smoldering resentment against Ironsmith. He had never quite approved of the younger man’s unpressed slacks and his untidy hair, his rusty bicycle and his chewing gum, his idle reading and his commonplace companions. For scientific scholarship, to Claypool. had been a kind of high religion, with its own hard discipline. The easy-going, callow-minded hack in the computing section had always seemed to lack that stern devotion.
And Ironsmith loomed up now as a monstrous enigma, more able and more dangerous than he had ever guessed. Bleakly, Claypool wished again that the other had turned out to be a second Major Steel—that would have been at least a comprehensible answer to the riddle.
“At your service, sir,” came the sudden voice behind him. “It is time for you to go.”
Even that gentle purr made him start up nervously, for his thoughts of Ironsmith had grown into brooding apprehension, and he faced the evening with an uneasy dread. He hurried silently across the red landing stage, and the two guardian machines helped him carefully up to the long covered deck.
Watching through the hull’s dark transparency, he saw Ironsmith pedaling along down the path from the old computing section, bareheaded in the cool dusk and whistling cheerfully, A pang of envy stabbed him.
It simply wasn’t fair.
For Project Thunderbolt had become a kind of secret shrine, to a god of awful vengeance, and Claypool felt that he was not the master of it, but only a chained altar slave. His own hard duties in that hidden vault had long ago wrecked his digestion and blighted his marriage and soured his disposition. Now, when his cruel vows were calling him back again, perhaps to sacrifice his memory or his life, it seemed bitterly unfair for Ironsmith to be so blithely young, so idly free and irresponsibly lighthearted.
Ironsmith leaned his cycle against the villa wall, and ran lightly to the cruiser. The deck was chest-high, with no step or ladder. He asked no aid, however, and the mechanicals offered none. He vaulted easily aboard, and sank into the deep seat beside Claypool with a genial grin.
The door closed then, and the cruiser rose silently. As the mountain dropped back into the thickening dark, Claypool risked another glance at the old search building. It still stood—but the digging machine, carving long slow slices from the mountain, was creeping steadily toward its secret.
Claypool resolutely made his eyes move on, and he turned to Ironsmith with a guarded wariness. But the younger man didn’t behave like an enemy. He had left his pipe behind, as if from courtesy, and he offered Claypool a stick of chewing gum.
“It helps,” he urged, “if you can’t smoke.”
Then he began pointing out the luminous roofs of new villas scattered across the dark plain beneath, and talking brightly of the tunnels the humanoids were boring, and pumping stations they were building, to divert whole rivers to this arid plateau.
Claypool chewed his gum distastefully, tautly alert.
The little ship lifted out of the twilight at Starmont, and curved high through the violet blackness of the ionosphere to overtake the setting sun. It slanted down again, toward the dark and jagged edge of land against the bright hammered copper of the sea.
A stark granite headland flung up at them. Red sunset shimmered on the wet black stones of a broken causeway. White spray plumed up from sharp black rocks. Claypool blinked at his pleasant-faced companion, and peered again.
“I call the place Dragonrock,” Ironsmith was murmuring, “after that old light that used to stand here.”
Claypool nodded, suddenly cold and ill. Why had he picked this certain spot? What had he done with the curious fugitives hiding in the old tower—White and his disciples? Claypool shivered to his bleak apprehensions, but he dared not utter such questions.
“Pretty wonderful, isn’t it?”
Ironsmith was beaming innocently, and Claypool turned dazedly to survey the bright new castle crowning that dark headland. Golden columns and balconies and clustered towers made a luminous filigree too elaborate for his taste, and high roofs burned crimson.
The craft settled lightly on a wide lauding stage. The machines opened the door, and helped Claypool alight. Ironsmith sprang down unaided, and took him to tour the monumental halls and the exotic gardens sheltered from the cold sea winds by crystal parapets.
“Pretty gorgeous, don’t you think?” Ironsmith said happily. “I’d like to live here, if I had time.” Claypool eyed him narrowly, wondering. What else had he to do? How did he earn his singular freedom? Claypool blinked angrily at his own silent guardians. A blaze of irritation swept him, and he blurted suddenly:
“Can’t you send them away—so we can talk alone?”
To his stunned surprise, Ironsmith nodded calmly.
“If you like. I’m afraid you let their presence worry you too much, and perhaps I can help you accept them.” And he turned quietly to the two machines. “Please leave us alone for half an hour. I’ll be responsible for Dr. Claypool’s safety.”
“At your service, sir.”
Obediently, the two keepers departed. Claypool gasped with an incredulous relief, and then he looked hard at Ironsmith. He saw only a lean, youthful man with honest, friendly eyes, but something touched him with icy awe.
Ironsmith beckoned cheerfully, and led him on across the soundless pavement of a vast court. The heated air was bitter with a dark fragrance from huge crimson fungi, fringed and intricate, which towered out of tall golden jars. A crystal wall stopped them, and white surf was moaning over black rocks far below.
Claypool caught his breath, and plunged vehemently.
“Frank, I want to know what happened to White and that child and the others?”
Ironsmith’s gray eyes turned sober.
“I don’t know.” he said slowly. “I came here looking for them, and found the old tower empty. I selected this for a building site, hoping they might return. But they didn’t, and I never found a clue.”
Claypool saw the other’s urgent purpose, with a bleak amazement. For this was not the callow and indolent youth he had known, but a mature, determined man. That low, calm voice had a force and confidence which unnerved him. Bitterly, he gulped:
“Why try so hard?”
“Because White is an ignorant fanatic.” That soft voice had a crushing certainty. “Because his blundering attacks on Wing IV can do a vital harm.”
Claypool’s face set grimly.
“If he’s against the humanoids, that’s enough for me.”
“That’s why I brought you here—to warn you.” Ironsmith’s eyes were level and cool and a little sad. “Because I want to save you from making White’s old blunder. Your whole attitude is mistaken, Claypool, and dangerous.”
Claypool shivered.
“That drag, you mean?”
“No, it’s something bigger than that,” Ironsmith said softly. “In fact, I think you ought to ask for euphoride. Because it’s useless to fight the humanoids. You can only hurt yourself—and others. You might as well let them help you.” Claypool said nothing, but his narrow jaw set hard. He stared out at the ruddy light dancing on the sea, wondering how to ask what he had to know.
“The big danger is from White,” Ironsmith went on gently. “I believe he will try to get in touch with you? If he does, please tell him to come to me—before his mad plots have plunged us all into catastrophe. I want a chance to show him that he’s on the wrong side. Will you pass along that message?”
Claypool shook his head. He caught his breath, and tried to shrug off his uneasy dread of this inexplicable individual, who had been only a clerk at Starmont.
“Ironsmith, there are things I’ve got to know.” His voice had a breathless harshness. “Just how do you get on so well with these machines? Why are you so worried about White’s fight against them? And who—” His voice caught. “Who’s your chess opponent—when you’re all alone?”
Ironsmith gave him a brief, sunburned “fin.
“Your imagination is working too hard. Really, I think you had better ask for euphoride.”
“Don’t say that!” Claypool’s voice turned husky, and he clutched desperately at the other’s sleeve. “I know you can help me—you’ve escaped the drug.” His tone became a frantic mumble. “Please . . . please, Frank . . . be human!” Ironsmith nodded sympathetically. “I’m trying to help you—if you will let me.”
“Then tell me—” His voice shook. “Just tell me what to do!”
“Accept the humanoids,” Ironsmith said softly. “That’s all I did. If you will do that—actually—everything else will come. If you don’t, nothing else will help you. And I’m afraid that’s all I can say.”
“Frank!” Claypool clung to him, frantically. “I know there’s something else. Please—”
“But,” Ironsmith’s calm gray eyes were looking back across the court again, past the bitter-odored fungi in the tall yellow jars.
“They’re coming back,” he murmured. “So I’m afraid we’ve no more time. I hope you remember my message for White. But you really should try to accept the humanoids. They were made, you know, to protect and aid and obey mankind.”
Inwardly shivering, Claypool watched the two tiny humanoids come running gracefully back across the court, to resume their intolerable watch. He turned shakenly between them, to look back at the fading crimson on the sea.
He’d accept them, he thought savagely, with a shot from Project Thunderbolt. He couldn’t understand why such a man as Ironsmith had turned against his kind, even to earn his freedom. But the humanoids—somehow—had to be stopped.
“At your service, sirs,” came a sudden silver peal. “Your dinner is served.”
As they turned back from the transparent parapet, Claypool swept the other with a penetrating glance. To the eye, Ironsmith seemed a very ordinary man. His pink and open face showed some slight preoccupation, but he was busily chewing his gum and brightly interested in the waiting dinner.
XIV.
The vaulted hall where they dined had a spacious splendor which only television producers had imagined in the vanished past, before the humanoids. Six mechanicals served the too-elaborate meal. There were wines for Ironsmith, but none for Claypool.
“At your service, sir,” a machine whined melodiously. “But your health has been impaired by worry and fatigue. You must take no alcohol until you are better.”
It was serenely right, and intolerable.
When the meal was done, Ironsmith announced that he was staying for the night, and Claypool went back to Starmont alone. Aboard the silent cruiser, soaring above the atmosphere, he ignored the crystal beauty of the stars. He sat hunched on the edge of the luxurious seat, with his chin in his skinny hands, sunk deep in dismal failure. Ironsmith had proved himself both enemy and enigma. White had disappeared. He was left alone and he saw no hope.
“At your service, sir,” murmured the keeper beside him. “You appear uncomfortable.”
“Huh!” He tried to check his nervous start, stretched himself deliberately, and relaxed carefully in the deep seat. “No, I’m quite all right.”
He grinned stiffly at the two dark identical faces above him, out of an irony of nightmare. He knew, now, that he was trapped. No action was possible. These perfect and eternal keepers of mankind were pure benevolence, and more dreadful than anything evil.
They prohibited even the freedom of despair.
At the end of the flight, he chanced one more glance toward the old search building. A flat gray dome, beyond the glowing, graceful walls of the new villa, it was still intact—and as far from his reach as Wing IV itself. But the digging machine was nearer to it now, a slow metal saurian, devouring the mountain in the dark.
Claypool started awake, out of a troubled dream.
“Dr. Claypool! Please—can you hear me?”
A clear childish treble was calling to him, urgent and afraid. At first he thought that tiny voice was only a part of the dream. But something brought him up in the bed, suddenly wide awake, taut and shivering.
His dream had all dissolved, less vivid than this waking nightmare of mankind smothered under the absolute benevolence of the humanoids, but the terror of it had left rough pimples on his skin. He peered around him, trying to shake off a sense of helpless suffocation. For he was safe in his own new bedroom, here in the east wing of Starmont.
Quiet was here, comfort, and utter peace. In the softly glowing murals, village swains and maids danced silently at their unceasing festival. The vast east window, transparent now, opened upon flat desert and far folds of hills, washed now with chill blue dawn.
A tiny black machine stood beside his bed, alert and still as all mechanicals not at work. Its blind tranquility brought back all the helpless terror of his dream. He shuddered convulsively, and vainly strove to smile and hide his fear.
Then he saw that it had stopped.
It was falling, and it made no move to recover its balance. It toppled deliberately, still rigid as some statue of pure grace in black-lacquered metal. It struck the soft floor with a muffled crash and lay there, dark face up, incredibly stopped. And Claypool coughed to a sudden stinging reek of hot metal and burned plastics.
“Dr. Claypool!” He started again, and realized that the childish voice was not a dream. “Won’t you come with me? Please!”
Then he saw her.
Dawn Hall! She crept timidly around the foot of the huge bed. peering uneasily at the quiet mechanical on the floor. That immense bright room was warm enough, and she was huddled in a worn leather coat much too large for her, yet he saw that she was shivering. Under a thin yellow dress, her bare knees and feet were blue with cold.
She was nine or ten perhaps, though long hunger had made her look too small and too old. Her eyes, sunken and shadow-circled in her pinched, grimy face, were huge and dark with dread. Yet she wore a bit of red ribbon like a flag of courage in her straight black hair.
“Huh—why, hello, Dawn!” He saw her terror, and gave her a pale feeble grin. She smiled back uncertainly, and came on to the side of the bed. Claypool nodded stiffly at the fallen humanoid, whispering: “What happened to that?”
“I stopped it.”
“Huh!” He peered at her thin, frightened face, and then back at that stricken unit of the ultimate machine. A dazed incredulity shook him. “How?”
Her frightened eyes stared at the thing on the floor.
“Like Mr. White taught me.” Her voice was thin and breathless. “You just look, in a certain ’ticular way. Inside its head, you can see a white bead. That is—potassium.” She formed the word very carefully. “You just look—that certain ’ticular way—and the potassium burns.” Claypool shrugged, with a numbed acceptance. He remembered potassium’s unstable isotope, and White’s statement that he had learned to control atomic probability, to detonate K-40 atoms by an act of the mind. Claypool had wanted to doubt that, but here was the stunning proof.
“Please—won’t you come? ’Cause Mr. White says we need you very much. Won’t you come and help us now?”
But Claypool hardly heard her piping, desperate voice. He was staring at her black, limpid eyes, so wistful and anxious and afraid in their dark circles of weariness and want. He felt a tingle in his scalp, and he couldn’t stop his shivering.
For the human body, it occurred to him, also contained a fatal quantity of K-40. Old tales of the evil eye became suddenly something more than superstition. If this strange child could stop a humanoid by looking at it in a certain particular way, she could also kill a man.
“Please—won’t you come?”
The meaning of her breathless words burst upon him then, and a wave of hope swept away the nightmare chains of total frustration. He shrugged off his momentary terror of her black solemn eves, and smiled at her cheerfully.
